Moments
by Kikien
Summary: It's the brief moments that really count. Everything can change in an instant. A collection of 100-word drabbles set throughout the series.
1. Morning

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><p>Gunshots – rapid-fire cracks piercing the air.<p>

People are shouting, screaming, someone's been hit, someone beside him collapses in agony but there's no stopping for him, John has to run or he'll be hit, too.

An explosion somewhere in the distance, its location given away by a telltale column of smoke.

John makes it to the sandbags, he's safe again – as safe as one can be in the midst of a battlefield.

Someone's shouting something, and there's a searing pain in his shoulder, his leg –

He wakes up, alone in his flat, breathing heavily.

Good morning, it's a brand new day.


	2. Cab

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><p>Sir Jeffery Patterson never takes cabs. But there's no car, and she says to get a cab, and he loves her.<p>

Then, there's a gun pointed at him, and he's given the choice of two bottles full of red and white capsules, one of which is harmless.

He opens a bottle, stares at the pill, at the cabbie, for any hint. There's none. He puts it on his tongue, closes his mouth.

Along with the cabbie, he takes his medicine.

Minutes later, he's lying on the floor in front of a window in pain.

He won't be taking cabs anymore.


	3. Amazing Part I

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><p>No one could be that smart.<p>

John's but just met Sherlock Holmes, and somehow, the man knows every detail of his life. The war – that wasn't something that John talks about, but he knows.

The limp – John thinks it's real, but his therapist doesn't, and how, how does this man know that?

And Harry, he didn't say a word about Harry nor her problems, but somehow, the man figured it out.

When he demands an explanation, he hears about tan lines and scratches on the phone, and now that he hears the details explained out, it makes sense.

It's amazing.


	4. Amazing Part II

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><p>When Sherlock Holmes meets John Watson, he does what he always does – observes, analyzes, deduces.<p>

His deductions seem to disturb the other man – some of these are personal issues, he doesn't talk about them much.

He can't seem to understand how Sherlock did it.

It's just simple deduction, he explains. The posture of a military man, a telltale engraving, and a shot in the dark about unsteady, drunk hands, he just ties his observations together to a conclusion.

He's right, he always is. Except about the sister. He's no amateur.

John's amazed.

"Amazing," is a lot better than "Piss off!"


	5. Rush

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><p>Sherlock Holmes had invited him to a crime scene.<p>

He'd just seen the man jump for joy at the serial killing – not normal, by any stretch of the word.

John wasn't looking for normal. He'd been normal ever since he got back from Afghanistan, and he'd hated every minute of it.

It might be dangerous? He was in. He had no idea what he was getting into.

For the rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins, his heartbeat loud in his ears and for the rush of energy, it didn't matter that he barely knew the man.

He didn't care.


	6. Freak

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><p>Sherlock Holmes showed up at the crime scene with an unfamiliar man in tow.<p>

He left just as suddenly, leaving the man behind, just like he did with everyone else. The man looks a little lost – it must be his first time meeting the freak.

She pities Sherlock's new companion. Gives him a warning – it's the best she can do.

Sherlock Holmes doesn't care about anyone. He'll always leave you behind. He'll hurt you, that man. Broadcast your deepest secrets aloud as if they were inconsequential.

God, she hated that man, Sherlock Holmes. There was something _wrong_ with him.

Freak.


	7. Reason

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><p>The crime scene – they've let him in, of course, they need Sherlock Holmes.<p>

He's alone in the room with his thoughts. Oh, Lestrade's there, thinking – annoying! Shut up. Now he can examine the scene. A dead body, one of the serial suicides, obviously, but this one's different, a message, he can work off of this. He can't come up with much, just where she's from, the state of her marriage, the serial adultery, the suitcase…

"That's fantastic!" – John?

He's just accused Lestrade of being annoying by thinking, but John's done worse, he's talked!

For some reason, he doesn't mind it.


	8. Need

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><p>Lestrade has a whole team outside, but Sherlock refuses to work with them.<p>

Of course he does, he's always difficult. He won't work with anyone – Anderson especially. And Lestrade, he's breaking so many rules to let this man, with no connection to the police, into the crime scene.

_Because_, says Sherlock_, you need me_.

Lestrade can't deny it. Crimes are getting more out-of-hand, more violent, more, more, more. And they're getting harder to solve – Lestrade likes to think he's smart, but there's times when he's out of his depth.

Yes, he needs Sherlock.

As much as he wishes he didn't.


	9. Running

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><p>Sherlock's running, running, and John follows.<p>

How does he expect to catch a taxi?

He follows anyways.

Right turn, one way – they're running through backstreets and alleys; John can't see the taxi, but they're still running. It's frantic and frenetic and frenzied and he hasn't run this far, this fast – not since Afghanistan. John's running.

Up stairs, jumping roofs, down stairs – two at a time – and in front of a cab, how did they do that?

He can't shake the feeling he's forgotten something important.

Hours later, back at the flat, Angelo knocks on the door with a cane.

Oh.


	10. Mercy

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><p>She understood the threat in the yellow paint. She knew she couldn't avoid it. She almost thought she could escape it, start a new life, but their control was as permanent as the mark on her heel; it's a constant reminder of the days past.<p>

She knows she's going to die.

She can't escape it, but she knows she can hide for a little. While hiding, she helps someone who could take down the web. But it won't be in her lifetime.

She's been trapped in its web for long enough.

When The Spider comes, she almost sees it as mercy.


	11. Spider

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><p>She's not his sister any more. Soo Lin Yao is a betrayer, a coward, a deserter.<p>

He can't call her his sister any more. Zhi Zhu is a member of the Block Lotus Tong, and so is his not-sister. She has the mark, she can't deny it.

And she won't even help her own brother! But he's not her brother any more.

He is The Spider.

He is the man that killed Van Coon and Lukis.

The spider strikes. He leaves behind the corpse of his not-sister, and a token reminder.

The body holds a small lotus in her hand.


	12. Threat

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><p>Sherlock's missed something, Soo Lin's given him another clue.<p>

Then – the tourists! The book, he knows what it is, he's seen it before, and he translates the first pair of numbers he's seen, the threat. And he hurries to translate the rest – finds the object, the value, the location.

Suddenly, it all makes sense. He needs to tell John, he's got it!

He has the book! He's cracked it – he can read the cipher!

So when John and Sarah aren't anywhere to be found, he can understand the familiar pair of numbers spray-painted on the windows.

Deadman's Lane.

Dead man.


	13. Glad

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><p>They've got the wrong man. John's not Sherlock Holmes.<p>

But he carries his debit card, his cheque, his tickets, his impression. John's arguments are so weak that he would believe himself, either.

He doesn't know what the treasure is or where it's hidden, and suddenly Sarah's life is the price for information he doesn't have.

John's not Sherlock Holmes.

If he was, he'd have known. He'd have figured out what was going on, he'd know where the treasure was, and he'd know how to save them.

John's not Sherlock Holmes.

So he's understandably glad when the real Sherlock shows up.


	14. Rescue

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><p>The weight is slowly lowering towards the plate, and he has to stop it somehow before it they come into contact – the bolt will fire, Sarah's in its path.<p>

What a lousy first date.

Then Sherlock comes, attacking the lackeys, outsmarting the semiautomatic. Then the spider comes, slips a silk rope around Sherlock's neck, and he's not going to rescue Sarah anymore.

But they're distracted.

John move as fast as he can, but it's not fast enough.

And John falls – tied, he can't get back up.

He can just reach it, and he kicks –

The bolt fires.

The Spider falls.


	15. Tastings

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><p>John Watson seemed like a nice enough man.<p>

He was sweet, and he was smart, and he was more than qualified for the job. A military doctor – he's probably seen more excitement in a day than she will in her life. She could certainly deal with more excitement; her life's been dull, dull, dull.

As dull as the book event sounded. Until she's at 221B Baker St and they're cracking some sort of secret code.

Then she's at the circus, then she's kidnapped, then a crossbow's aimed at her.

She tastes the excitement, and decides she doesn't like it.


	16. Puppeteer

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><p>This man – or woman, she's never met the person – has helped her so much.<p>

She's repaid her debt for the help with failure.

She never expected a man like Sherlock Holmes.

General Shan apologizes – she's compromised the safety, the identity of the person she's never known. The person that was behind the help – the puppeteer pulling all the strings, she's never known who, but she knows of the person's existence.

She swears that she will keep this secret.

And the puppeteer is sure of this – she'll never have the chance to tell.

The red dot rises to her forehead.

Bang.


	17. Tenant

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><p>Sherlock had a hard enough time finding a flat in London that was willing to accept him.<p>

He was unceremoniously kicked out of the ones that did.

Mrs. Hudson wouldn't admit it, but she liked having Sherlock as a tenant. He was the only one who shot up her walls or kept skulls on the fireplace, but she didn't mind.

Being close to him put her in danger, but when the threats became real, the fury in his eyes…

Rarely was she a part of it, but the spirit of adventure, the thrill of the chase–

She wanted nothing less.


	18. Scramble

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><p>Carl Powers was just the beginning.<p>

Five pips – five hostages, and five crimes. It was easy enough to manage. Then sit back and watch Sherlock Holmes scramble to solve the mystery. It was a fine game of cat and mouse between two people.

Sure, he could just kill them all. It would be easy enough to arrange. But where was the fun in that? Where was the great consulting detective – the only one in the world – rushing around franticly?

And he'd rush when he saw the last hostage.

It was all just a game – a great game.

And you're playing.


	19. But it's the Solar System Part I

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><p>How can someone not know that the Earth goes around the Sun?<p>

It was common knowledge. Every man should know that. But then again, he did note that sometimes the detective acted pettily childish. Still, it was basic astronomy, and for someone so brilliant, so well-versed in knowledge both obvious and obscure, to not know?

This man was a genius. He could connect thousands of seemingly unrelated, irrelevant pieces of information into a picture that, if you thought about it, was so obviously there in the first place.

The solar system!

This man will always remain a mystery to John.


	20. But it's the Solar System Part II

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><p>Who cared that the Sun went around the Earth or the Earth around the Sun?<p>

Would it help solve crimes? Would it stop people from dying? It was like caring – it didn't help, and was of no use to him. There were more important things that demanded his attention, and if he learned anything about the solar system, he promptly forgot it.

But he remembered his oh so irrelevant first meeting with John.

Sherlock didn't need irrelevant information.

He deleted it.

The easy camaraderie he'd fostered between himself and John was irrelevant.

But he couldn't bring himself to delete it.


	21. Observation

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><p>The answers lie in the details that most people look over.<p>

They see, but they don't understand what it means, how to connect the information from their eyes.

The mud on shoes normally kept pristine. Foreign money, tan lines, an irritation from a shot on a person who apparently hadn't been abroad. Second autopsy and internet purchases leading to death by botox. A pinpoint of light that shouldn't exist in a starry sky that never existed.

These were little things, but anyone could see them. They were all obvious for anyone who bothered to look.

Most people see. Sherlock observes.


	22. Games

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><p>It's a game to Moriarty, to Sherlock.<p>

A game, in which when he makes one false move, people die. If he gets it wrong, people die. If he's too slow, people die. Nothing personal.

_That's what people do._

A puzzle which he must solve, without as many clues as he'd have liked. But it's the challenge, the impossibility of the situation. He enjoys it, having to solve crimes that aren't just the open-and-shut cases that made the majority of his mundane life.

The stakes are high.

And he'd never admit it, but he hasn't had this much fun in ages.


	23. Pinpoint

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><p>A pinpoint of red light dances across his chest.<p>

His chest is covered in a jacket, and he knows the instant he makes a sudden move, the spot of red light will blossom into a bloodstain as a bullet pierces his body. No, that won't happen. He'll be blown up by the explosive-packed jacket before then.

When Sherlock steps in, he says exactly what he's supposed to.

When Moriarty steps in, he doesn't say a thing.

Steels himself, then grapples Moriarty.

_Sherlock, run!_

_We'll go up together._

Maybe he wouldn't make it through this, but Sherlock might.

It was good.


	24. Dearest

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><p>Mycroft sees his brother wearing a sheet.<p>

He's in the palace, about to solve a crime for the royal family, and he's wearing nothing but a sheet. He had even provided him with a suit to wear – the right size and make, absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Except for the fact that it was from Mycroft.

So, of course, when he sees Sherlock, he's not wearing the suit. He's wearing a sheet. In the palace.

For some reason he's not surprised.

Really, all of this, just to spite him? Just for him? How sweet.

I love you, too, brother dearest.


	25. Read

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><p>Sherlock was stunned speechless when he first saw Irene Adler.<p>

Might've been because of her clothing– or lack thereof.

When he tried to read her, he drew a blank. Sherlock Holmes doesn't draw blanks.

He observes, and draws logical conclusions based off of his observations.

He knew wasn't losing his touch – he read John like a book, deducing the tiniest fragments of his life in a brief glance. He stared back at Miss Adler again. Nothing. She had no disguise. She hid nothing. Miss Adler left nothing to the imagination.

Yet, for all he could see, he could read nothing.


	26. Lost

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><p>She was smart, she was, but no one's smarter than Sherlock.<p>

A passcode he was never told, Vatican cameos, and a booby trap – he figured it all out.

Then he feels something poke into his arm and the world's gone blurry and he can't focus, but he knows one thing – he has the phone, and he can't lose the phone.

The riding crop – smack, smack, smack, and he drops it, and feels the drugs weigh down his limbs, but he fights.

Sherlock Holmes doesn't lose.

He wakes up in a bed, barely able to stand, and he's lost the phone.


	27. Know

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><p>Irene Adler is dead. John's never understood the man, but he's sure that there was <em>something<em> between her and Sherlock, even if he's not sure of what that something was. But she's dead now.

Sherlock's quiet these days. Doesn't answer back.

Composes sad, yearning melodies.

Stares out the window.

If John didn't know better, he could swear the man was moping. Sherlock Holmes, moping? Yeah, right, sure.

John wonders – has Sherlock ever had a girlfriend, boyfriend, relationship of some sort? And he doesn't know.

How could he not know?

He's Sherlock Holmes, nobody knows.

But how could he not know?


	28. Enigma

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><p>He as an enigma, that man, Sherlock Holmes.<p>

He'd comment on how her lipstick was odd, then complain when she took it off. He'd compliment her hair, then ignore her as soon as he got into the morgue.

He was using her to get what he wanted. But she realized he wasn't trying to be mean, he just didn't _understand_. The Christmas party and the dress?

In the end, he _did_ realize his mistake, and he tried to say sorry. She knew she shouldn't, but she forgave him.

Molly knew he was playing her.

She went along with it, anyways.


	29. Mark

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><p>Nobody is allowed to hurt Mrs. Hudson.<p>

She's Sherlock's landlady, and he's her tenant. And she's certainly not his housekeeper. But there's more than that. She's the lady that tolerates the skull on the mantelpiece, the mess in the flat, the bullets in the wall.

There's a mark on her face and blood on the American's hands. Sherlock's filled with a rage he doesn't know. She was Mrs. Hudson, you can't – don't – lay a finger on Mrs. Hudson.

The man falls out of a window, Sherlock loses count of how many times.

Nobody touches Mrs. Hudson without his permission. Nobody.


	30. Skull

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><p>The skull sat on the mantelpiece, collecting dust.<p>

Sherlock used to talk to it – he used it to think out loud, and when he was feeling dramatic, he'd hold it and quote Hamlet.

Then John came in. Sherlock stopped talking to the skull. John listened, and Sherlock wasn't annoyed by his attempts to answer or his inability to keep up with his jumps in logic.

In turn, John would respond, bringing a sense of normalcy to the eccentric man. Sometimes, they even went to crime scenes together.

The skull sat on in silence.

John filled its role so much better.


	31. Better

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><p>It's not possible.<p>

A hound, like a monster, gigantic. Hounds like that don't exist, he can't have seen it, but Sherlock knows that he has. And he's trembling, almost afraid of what he saw.

He trusted his mind more than anything, and it had betrayed him. And he's not sure who or what to trust, anymore. John's there, trying to comfort, telling him as a trusted friend to be rational.

But he doesn't have _friends_.

When John snaps and leaves, he realizes he's made more than one mistake that night.

There's nothing wrong with him.

He's fine. Never been better.


	32. Care

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><p>He doesn't have friends, he said.<p>

John had only been trying to help. But Sherlock had seen the impossible, and John just couldn't comprehend. He tried, he offered possible explanations: Sherlock was tired, it was dark. Nothing was good enough for him.

But the man is afraid, his mind has lied to him, and he used to always trust his mind.

John can see that he's shaken.

Sherlock lashes out – he's fine, he's never been better, leave him alone, he doesn't have friends.

And John had always thought of Sherlock as a friend.

Apparently, Sherlock didn't care for the idea.


	33. Seeing

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><p>John can't see it, but he knows that it's there.<p>

He hears its breath, hears it panting, hungry.

It's dark, he can't see. But John knows better. It's there.

He calls Sherlock – help, it's coming, and Sherlock says he's coming, but he's not coming fast enough, there's nowhere for John to run with the lights off and the horrible creature of nightmares in the same room.

He still hasn't seen it, but he knows, he knows.

Big, red eyes, a massive hound with glowing, matted fur and pointed teeth.

He knows what it looks like, but he can't see it.


	34. Back

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><p>The rain pattered against the windows of his therapist's office.<p>

He sits in a padded chair in low, comfortable lighting as she asks him why he's come back. He's come back because things are the same again.

He'd been there after the war because suddenly he was at a loss of what to do – he couldn't, just couldn't go back to the boring, mundane life of the office-dweller.

Then he met Sherlock Holmes.

Since then, he'd faced Chinese crime syndicates, bombers… he kept his gun with him again.

He had a taste of the danger.

And he couldn't go back.


	35. Say

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><p>He can't say it.<p>

John knows what happened; he saw it with his own two eyes. Sherlock had made sure of that. He'd felt the absence of a pulse in his arm, he had been to the grave.

And now he's at the therapist again, after eighteen months, and he can't say why.

She asks him what happened, and John is entirely sure that she already knows. It's been all over the papers, people talking about it, the news following him everywhere.

But the few words that are his problem escape him.

He opens his mouth.

Sherlock Holmes is dead.


	36. Least

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><p>Lestrade can't believe this, won't believe this.<p>

But it sounds so tantalizingly possible, and he can see why Donovan and Anderson believe that Sherlock's a fake. Lestrade, though, he'd never doubt Sherlock. He knows him too well – Sherlock never did any cases for the fame, to be a good person, to help the police.

No, he did them because he was bored. Because he enjoyed solving the puzzles that elft the rest of the world baffled.

Lestrade's with the police, and he has no choice.

He calls John, lets them know that they're coming.

It's the least he can do.


	37. Doubt

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><p>Lestrade's seen the worst of Sherlock.<p>

He didn't like it, so he dragged the man out of the hole he'd dug himself into.

Through drugs busts and patches, Lestrade considered Sherlock a friend of a sort. Sherlock was the type of friend that didn't know his first name. Lestrade was the type to trust his friends.

They had an arrangement. He would get the fun of solving a crime that baffled the police, and Lestrade would have another criminal behind bars.

It was too good to be true.

He had to consider the possibility.

For the first time, he doubted.


	38. An Offer

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><p>Molly could never really say that she knew Sherlock Holmes. Not a lot of people could.<p>

But she knows him well enough to see that he was sad when no one could see him. Except for her, but to Sherlock, Molly was nothing.

She knows what that means, and though he'd never want her help, she offered it anyways, because whatever Sherlock's going through can't be easy.

He could at least say thank you. For the first time, she speaks her mind.

She doesn't believe it when he says that actually, he would like-

She knows him better than that.


	39. Waiting Game

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><p>Sherlock sends a text – he sets up the setting of the game.<p>

He busies John talking about a non-existent binary code of no use to Moriarty, he pretends it's the key.

But Sherlock Holmes is no amateur, he's figured it all out, and he knows what is going to happen, what Moriarty intends, what the final problem is. And what he's going to do about it.

For now, it's a waiting game.

But when it's time to play, the stakes will be so much higher.

John receives a phone call. Whatever it is, he'll leave.

It'll be any minute now.


	40. Alone Part I

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Mrs. Hudson's been shot, John says. Probably by one of the assassins-next-door.

Sherlock doesn't hear that, though. He gets a different message. He already knows that Mrs. Hudson is absolutely fine, but he doesn't tell John.

John's puzzled, because the one time Mrs. Hudson had been hurt, because of Sherlock, of course, the American had fallen out the window. More than once. And now, Sherlock doesn't care at all, she's just a landlady.

Now's not the time to be smart, John.

John's so upset that he doesn't push it, exactly what Sherlock needs.

He's alone now.

It's time to play.


	41. Alone Part II

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Sherlock's thinking about something that John can't comprehend, but he's got to be there for his friend, now more than ever, because the world is against the both of them, right now.

Then he gets a phone call, Mrs. Hudson's been shot, and he's trying to explain it to Sherlock, but he doesn't seem to understand, but it's _Mrs. Hudson_, and Sherlock is supposed to care about Mrs. Hudson, she's more than a landlady, he's seen it before.

They left Mrs. Hudson alone, and she got shot.

Alone doesn't protect you. Friends do.

John leaves the lab, and Sherlock's alone.


	42. Trigger

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><p>Moriarty was wrong. Sherlock wasn't as boring as everyone else.<p>

It made the game much more interesting, though. He's cornered Sherlock, and his final move is to finish the story. _Disgraced detective commits suicide._

But Sherlock wasn't going to go down as long as there was the smallest possibility to escape. Oh, he was good. Moriarty needed to be better. His own existence was a possibility for Sherlock to escape – to leave the story unfinished. To beat Sherlock, there couldn't be a Moriarty.

He thinks he understands, now.

Shoves the gun into his own mouth, pulls the trigger–

Good game.


	43. Edge

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><p>There's something about seeing your best friend perched precariously on edge of the roof of a tall, tall building.<p>

And you're on the phone with him, and he's telling you he's a fake, and you can't – you just can't believe him. You don't know how, you don't know why, but something is wrong, something is oh so wrong.

You tell him anything you can to prove him wrong, but he won't listen. You couldn't ever hope to outsmart a brain like that.

Your best friend stands on the edge–

_Goodbye, John._

_No, don't._

spreads his arms –

_Sherlock!_

and he falls.


	44. Miracle

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><p>John saw him fall.<p>

He saw the body, his listless eyes, and the blood streaked down his face and matted into his hair. He felt the absence of a pulse indicating a still-beating heart. The death certificate, the headstone bearing his name.

John knows he's not really gone.

_It's a trick, _he said,_ a magic trick._

_Denial, _his therapist said_, these things take time._

Every week, John visits the grave that he's sure is empty, and talks to the friend he knows isn't there.

He can't believe that he's dead. If he does, he knows there won't be a miracle.


	45. Overflow

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><p>Sherlock still checks his phone.<p>

Some are from Mycroft and Molly with updates about life and London.

There were a few messages from Lestrade for a few days after the fall – doubtless he was in denial – but these quickly taper off and disappear to nothing.

What his inbox brims with are texts from John –

_Please, don't be dead, Sherlock. _

_I believe in you._

_Will you come home soon?_

_I miss you._

He reads every one of them, and wishes – oh, how he wishes he could respond.

But if he does, he's failed, they die.

He remains dead to the world.


	46. Phantoms

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><p>After the fall, John still saw him.<p>

A long dark coat swishing around a street corner, at the store, in the trees at the cemetery, always just a few steps ahead, just out of reach. Then he'd look again, and he was gone.

He wasn't all that surprised when he saw a familiar figure sitting in the chair in the flat. He made two cups of tea, but by the time the kettle boiled, the man was gone. One cup grew cold by an empty chair.

No one there.

Just the phantom of a great man – a good one, too.


	47. Never

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><p>What had she done?<p>

Sherlock Holmes was a fraud. He admitted it, himself. No one could track down a kidnapper from just a shoeprint. That, and all those other crazy things he had pulled from the air. Like, her and Anderson. Which was true, she admitted, but still.

Freak.

She just wanted him to _stop_, to be normal, to not be that brilliant man that was just _better_ than the entire police force.

She never wanted him to jump.

A month after, she saw John at the store. She always liked that man.

He looked broken.

What had she done?


	48. Shell

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><p>Molly doesn't see John so much anymore.<p>

He used to always tag along with Sherlock on their madcap adventures to solve another one of London's most baffling crimes.

Both were full of energy and vigour, the detective ten steps ahead of anyone, and his companion was the one who supported him, brought him back down to the real world.

Then he fell.

When she sees John, he has dark circles under his eyes and a pale, sickly pallor to his skin. He seems almost lost without the detective by his side.

He's only a hollow shell of his former self.


	49. Believe

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><p>John stands at the grave of his best friend.<p>

He'd recently fallen off of the top of a building, after demanding that John stand and watch, to keep his eyes fixed on the other man.

He'd seen the body, felt that there was no pulse in his arm. And he's standing at his grave.

He knows, he's seen, he's felt that Sherlock is dead. There's nothing left of him but a rotting corpse.

But it's Sherlock, and Sherlock doesn't die, not like that. The grave has to be empty.

He doesn't know what to think.

He chooses, instead, to believe.


	50. Dead

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><p>Sherlock watches John stand at an empty grave that bears his own name.<p>

As much as he wishes he could, he can't go to John, not now, not while Moriarty's web is still in place. He remains hidden, and watches from the shadows.

He didn't expect for this to happen, he didn't expect John to be so affected by his death. Sherlock's almost touched, in a way.

But he has things to do, he has a web to take down, and he can't be alive until Moriarty's influence is gone and everyone's safe.

Sadly, he thinks:

It's better this way.


End file.
